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My money where my mouth is – creating a wine range

It is quite a long time since I sold wine for a living, but I am well aware that I am often critical of how others retail wine – especially the supermarkets. With that in mind together with some nostalgic thoughts for the shop managing days of my youth, I was thrilled to be asked to create a wine range for a brand new wine shop. It is one thing to say how it ought to be, to rant and criticise, but quite another to do it yourself.

Of course as soon as I was asked to take this on all my clear-cut certainties went out of the window and I started worrying if I was doing it right and I had to keep reminding myself that the wine was not all for me, it must have wines that other people will enjoy too. If that means stocking Pinot Grigio, then so be it, but let’s make it one that is not totally bland!

My aim was to create a wine range that had something for everyone, offered good quality, great value for money and was exciting into the bargain. Of course what constitutes exciting can vary enormously, some wines are exciting by merely being whacky and unusual, some by being really great examples of what they are and some just by being amazing value.

We opened last week and I spent most of Saturday there talking to customers about the wine range and selling some too, which was a very satisfying feeling. It is early days, but from the reactions I was receiving it looks as though the good people of Stoke Newington liked the range that I put together – I must own up to being quite proud of it myself.

The Wine Shop Downstairs at Le Parc

The shop by the way is Le Parc Delicatessen, 191 Stoke Newington Church Street, Stoke Newington, London, N16 0UL – Telephone: 020 7923 0200 and it is a lovely place. The ground floor sells coffee, pastries, pizzas, cheeses, grocery and a wonderful array of tempting gift items sourced by my friend Cengiz Caglar, but tucked away in the corner is a spiral staircase to the wine shop downstairs. It is a terrific space with lovely shelves made of old wood, from the moment I saw it I knew this was going to be a good wine shop – as long as I got my bit right!

If you find yourself in the area do drop in and see if something appeals to you, I have created a range of 170 wines that concentrates on the £6-£20 price range and offers loads of wines that I think really over deliver on quality at their price. The range includes many different highlights – lovely everyday drinking wines, wonderful more expensive bottles and some cracking wines that would be perfect for a dinner party.

Obviously I like, or appreciate them all, but I believe that a wine range should be exciting to look at and offer real points of interest – here are a few of the stand stand out wines for me:

This is a delicious wine, Gros Manseng should be better known. In many ways this tastes like a really good Sauvignon Blanc that has just a little touch of sweetness. A delicious aperitif and perfect with melon or with spicy and Chinese food, or rich pâtés – or onion soup…

Gavi is made from the Cortese, another grape that should be better known! I have liked this wine for years, it is a single vineyard, dry, unoaked Gavi with creamy notes from lees ageing that gives it a lovely kiss of complexity.

Grüner can be a mixed bag too, so I was thrilled to find this crisp, delicately spicy mineral example from a great producer – it is a lovely glass of wine at £11.99 a bottle.

Of course this is just a small selection of the slightly more unusual white wines on offer, you will also a host of other wines, including find a Pinot Gris, a Gewurztraminer and a dry Riesling from the wonderful André Scherer in Alsace; some really good Chablis, Sancerre, Touraine Sauvignon, Pouilly-Fumé and Pouilly-Fuissé as well as an array of Sauvignons, Rieslings and Chardonnays from New Zealand, Chile, South Africa et al.

This often forgotten bit of Spain is now a rising star and Juan Gil is one of the leading innovators here – this is a big, rich and spicy wine that also offers beautifully vibrant, almost pretty fruit – this great wine is fast becoming one of Spain’s most sought after and is just £13.99 a bottle.

Finding value in Beaujolais is not easy, especially if you want good quality as well. This wine is not cheap, but it is so good, rich and fruity and is so good with charcuterie that I felt we must have it.

A perfect light red for chilling at £9.99 a bottle.

2007 Organic Cabernet Sauvignon
Bodega Cecchin, Mendoza, Argentina

What a wine, it is so fruity and vibrant and pure with ripe velvety tannins and a freshness that make sit a joy to drink with almost anything.

It is oddly quite difficult to get California right as it either consists of somewhat tedious branded wines – that most consumers know – or the hugely expensive boutique wines. Well this little gem falls into neither category and is a great example of Zin, bursting with raspberry fruit with a dusting of cracked black pepper.

It is delicious, I love the Mr Kite-like label and it is just £7.99 a bottle.

Another wine I have known for many years, it is one of the finest wines from Chile and can happily grace any dinner table.

A wonderfully elegant and fine red for £18.99 a bottle.

Of course there are many more wines than this, many of which should have appeared in this list and would have done on a different day – that is the nature of wine, it is very like a music collection really.

I am also excited that we are getting some stunning Northern RhôneSyrah wines from multi award winning winemaker Jean-Luc Colombo – they arrive any day now – the Côtes du Rhône-Villages and Cairanne are wonderful too, as are the wines from Domaine de l’Hortus in Pic-St-Loup and the Carmenères from Tres Palacios in Chile’s Maipo Valley and the Shiraz wines from Grant Burge in the Barossa Valley and…well you get the picture.

The range will not stand still, but will evolve and always be a work in progress, but I aim to make sure it continues to reflect what I think a wine selection should be – exciting, delicious and great value for money. It was a terrific experience to use my skill to put a range of wines together and I look forward to hearing people’s thoughts about it over the coming weeks.

Drop in for a chat, I will be there from time to time conducting tastings.

More information about Le Parc will soon be available from their web site.

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11 thoughts on “My money where my mouth is – creating a wine range”

Well done Quentin. I know well that it is easy to taste and review wines, but to actually select wines to sell is different, requiring a different attitude. A case of putting your mouth where the money is?

A great achievement Quentin! I am sure that the good people of Stoke Newington will appreciate your efforts. By the way, Anett is leaving on Sunday back to Germany. She arranged a lovely gift for me… a bottle of Diel Riesling 2009 Dorsheim (Nahe).
Looking foraward to enjoying it…maybe @ Christmas?

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Welcome to my Wine Page

I’m Quentin Sadler, a wine educator
and consultant. I run wine classes
and courses, I train people in the
wine business, dabble in wine
writing and write technical and
commercial articles, back-labels
and wine lists for my wine trade
customers.

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